Case Name: People of the State of California v. Pete Marron

Case Description: Murder of one baseball fan by another in parking lot of Dodger Stadium.

This case was erroneously reported on by the media for months, in that the media continued to report that the murder was motivated by team rivalries, that is, that a Dodgers fan killed a Giants fan over an argument centered on their team allegiances. This was not the motive for the killing, yet the case still involved interesting issues.

Despite the attempts of his friends and family to minimize it, the fact was that the victim was intoxicated and very belligerent as he walked through the Dodger Stadium parking lot en route to his friend's vehicle. He became embroiled in an argument with his sister, then another with a member of defendant Marron's group. The argument seemed to settle down, but then flared again. In an angry, bellicose manner, the victim began to approach the vehicle in which the defendant and his group had come to the game. Witness accounts varied as to how close he actually got to the defendant's vehicle, but at some point the defendant did enter the vehicle, which was not his, and removed a gun. As the victim edged closer, the defendant fired two shots, killing him.

The victim's intoxication, his desire to fight members of the defendant's group, his imposing size and the resulting threat he posed to them, and the fact that the victim somehow ended up with gunshot residue on his hands all presented challenges in this prosecution.   The judge also excluded all gang-related evidence in the case, which made it much more difficult to explain why the 19-year old Marron would have taken the gun, which belonged to the 33-year old co-suspect Manuel Hernandez out of Hernandez's vehicle to settle an argument between the victim and Hernandez. Nevertheless, the jury convicted defendant Marron of first degree murder after approximately three hours of deliberations.